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I agree with you Richard that the mind game is the most important to trading, but I think the 10k hour theory holds true for mastery in the trading world. And that doesn't really involve banging your head against the wall for 10k hours either. It requires deliberate practice and critique by a coach. I believe people misunderstand the 10k hours for "the time it takes to be profitable"...
like tderrick just said:
So obviously there are different levels to trading, and all those levels happen within the 10k hours. Just because you haven't hit the 10k hours, doesn't mean you will fail at making money.
Platform: "I trade, therefore, I AM!"; Theme Song: "Atomic Dog!"
Trading: EMD, 6J, ZB
Posts: 796 since Oct 2009
trading (for a living) is a business, and as such, your comments are spot-on.
if one has sufficient resources to self fund themselves (living, vacation and incidental expenses) over a 10,000 hour period, as well as funds to float an account at least three times (given expected adverse trading results)
then one need find a wealth manager (high class broker) rather than take this approach at trading for themselves.
one need turn the curve far faster than some arbitrary 5 year horizon.
some teach: "stay off those websites / threads", and to some extent, that is valid, depending on one's bandwidth and ability to socialize for business reasons. if one is participating for comic relief or humor then, the advice is valid. if one is participating on futures.io (formerly BMT) (and other trader websites) for the value and improvement to their portfolio and sharing with others (contributing) then one need stay on these threads...
trading is a business, whether you're a proprietary shop, hack shop, bike shop or truck stop
set your high expectations and hold your results accountable to them!
hopefully you'll turn profitable long before your 6th month and long before your 1st year...
Here's an interesting reality TV series on Wall Street participants - including a Day Trader.
The Analyst gal who left home at 15 and retired at 27 didn't need much time to make good money! I assume most here think the 10k hours are needed to just get profitable, never mind become financially independent.
There are 6 programs in season 1, and 10 in season 2 it seems. Worth watching one a day, even if that means spending less time on trading forums! Do hope nobody here wastes their valuable time on Facebook and such, right?
I watched this series (two seasons before canceled) and enjoyed it. It's not that it's a great series, but just that I could relate to some of it. These guys are living HUGE in Manhattan so I couldn't relate to that, but I could to the trading …
Being the massive cynic that I am... I can only assume that the 10,000 hours figure has come about as the maximum time people are generally willing to spend throwing their money after magic indicators and paying for "the secrets that the market makers don't want you to know".
If the snake oil sellers have people believing it takes 10,000 hours to become successful, that's 10,000 hours they will be willing to buy their stuff, because you know, they are still learning....it's just the learning process....right?
While I agree that it may take 10,000 hours to reach the levels of Marty Shwartz (which can't even be the case, since he became a profitable trader within a year), I think that most people assume trading is harder than it really is.
Let me give you some anecdotal evidence related to myself and my family:
My father began his career as a trader during the 90s, and he turned $10,000 into over $3mm (US dollars) in a single year by just taking advantage of a single strategy over and over.
Now let me give you the details:
1) He quit his job as an MD in order to trade full-time
2) He did not have any secondary income
3) He sold everything he had in order to trade
4) He sold my mom's car in order to get enough money to open the account. In the end they had a little over $10,000.
5) My mom did not have a full-time position since I was just born at the time
I believe that if anyone gets to the point where they need to learn to trade to survive and provide to his/her family, they can do it within a couple of months. The problem is that most people are unwilling to put in the conscious effort to learn the craft. They want to do it without thinking, and with a holy grail system if possible.
That is the problem in my view. There is simply no holy grail or automated money-making machine, and people can't accept it.
I'm sure that it could take over 10,000 hours to accept this simple fact of life. Most people never learn it.
Why would you need to know what makes the market run or how the software works? Your job is to figure out what makes the ticker move, and how it moves. Not how the infrastructure of the market works :P
If you're making the line go from the bottom left to the top right of your screen, you're doing the job.